Recently, I was invited to speak in an undergraduate class at Yale. I’ve been missing time with students, so I was thrilled to have the opportunity. E (my wife) and I made a trip of it, exploring New Haven for the first time. Once we finished walking around town, I stopped by Berkeley College, where my friend Ben was the Faculty-in-Residence for many years. And, at the end of a beautiful fall day, I walked into Harkness Hall.

My host, Professor Brian Lee, created a plan that meant the students didn’t know I was coming. They had been presented with our country’s current literacy crisis. And, in a class on Social Entrepreneurship, they were asked, What will you do? Then, they were told, an “expert” will be here to evaluate your ideas in thirty minutes.

My ego was quickly destroyed when the first group said, “We considered an interesting idea… what if you matched high school students with elementary school students?”

My life’s work achieved in just 30 minutes!

Many of the ideas were wonderful. Though a bit tech heavy, they were focused on trying to figure out how struggling teen readers could access lower-level content in a motivating way. They were very focused on engaging the teens, though no one thought to pay them(!). The students were very talented and incredibly curious. I was impressed.

Once they shared their ideas, and I provided feedback, I talked about Reach’s founding and growth. I also shared about the end of time at Reach (having told Brian that I’d be happy to chat about my full leadership experience). 

The class ended at 5:20pm, but I remained talking to students until almost 6:00pm. I left energized. And, when Professor Lee followed up, he shared that, “it was easily the students' favorite class of the year and it went even better than my high expectations for it.”

I still love teaching. I’m so thankful to have had the opportunity to be back in a classroom. If you ever need a guest speaker, I’m here.